I wrote an article today about learning by wearing a different face. You may have heard about Peppers the clown. If you haven’t, Peppers is a great example of this theory. See my photo below to see what I’m referring to.
Lessons I Learned Wearing A Different Face
October 2005
“Who do you think I am?” I’ve often asked friends and colleagues. Not a typical question, you’d say, unless I was dressed as Dr. Peppers the clown. Showing others a different side of ourselves can be quite enlightening. Such was the case for me last fall when I attended a professor’s class as her invited guest. She wanted her students to share a dimension of themselves other than the academic. That classroom experience was educational for me as well.
I’ve learned that being someone else with my white face clown makeup and bright curly red hair is quite freeing. It’s great fun when someone smiles, makes an approving comment or jokes about my unusual appearance. While most adults are more constrained, children tend to cluster around often touching to determine how real you are.
Wearing a clown’s face and clothes involves risk taking with the potential for rejection. I wonder will people smile or laugh at me. Will I be ignored or will someone talk to me? Do they think I will embarrass them? These lifetime questions are magnified by my different appearance.
When you consider wearing something unusual for a special party, watch children playing “dress up” or answer the door on Halloween, stop for a reflective moment. Does being in a make believe world, even briefly, provide a bit of freedom? What lessons can we learn from showing another side of ourselves? Then, we too may want to ask, “Do you really know who I am?”